It wasn’t necessary.
Alejandro felt an old pressure in his chest.
A memory.
He didn’t invite her. She arrived alone.
She was eleven when she saw her own mother hiding a bruise with cheap makeup. She was twelve when she learned to recognize the sound of a slap on the other side of a wall. She was thirteen when the man who shared her last name left her at the hospital and said it was “just a slip.”
Her mother’s name was also Mariana.
It wasn’t the same face.
It wasn’t the same life.
But that absurd coincidence hit him where it hurt the most.
Perhaps that’s why she never married.
Perhaps that’s why he had built companies, hotels, towers, foundations and a reputation as an impeccable man, while inside he was still the child who one night understood that money doesn’t always arrive on time.
A doctor approached.
—Mr. Castillo.
Alejandro stood up.
Lucia too.
—The patient arrived with a severe infection after a complicated delivery. There was also a poorly managed hemorrhage. Frankly, a few more hours and we wouldn’t have made it.
Lucia started crying again.
“But is he alive?” asked Alejandro.
—For now, yes. She’s in surgery. There’s something else…
The doctor hesitated.
—She has injuries that are not explained by childbirth. Old and recent bruises. We suspect sustained physical violence.
Alejandro nodded only once.
He didn’t seem surprised.
Just colder.
—Activate protocol. Social work. Public Prosecutor’s Office. Child protection.
—It’s already underway.
Lucía heard that last sentence and was startled.
—No… don’t call the police… if Ramiro gets angry…
Alejandro crouched down to be at her level.
Listen to me carefully. This time he’s not going to be in charge again.
The girl watched him with a strange mixture of terror and need.
“Everyone says that,” he murmured. “Then they leave.”
That phrase did more damage than any reproach.
Alejandro opened his mouth.
She closed it.
Because he understood that promising was easy.
The hard part was staying.
And he didn’t know, until that moment, if he really intended to do it.
It dawned gray.
The hours dragged on amid signatures, calls, reports, and silence.
Around six in the morning, a woman in a sober suit arrived accompanied by a younger woman with a folder in hand.
The first woman introduced herself as Teresa Ibarra, a prosecutor specializing in domestic violence. The second woman identified herself as a social worker.
They weren’t improvising.
They came with data.
